


Of Soul and Mind

by LilacGooseberies



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Animancy, Caed Nua, Deadfire, Detective Work, F/M, Female Watcher - Freeform, Godlike Watcher, In-between games, Moon Godlike, Parenthood, cipher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-04-24 05:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14349123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacGooseberies/pseuds/LilacGooseberies
Summary: After coming to peace with her past life, getting the answer she was looking for, The Watcher known as Laura now needed to figure out what to do with it. Afraid to her core of what the Gods could do if she acted on her knowledge, she decided to enjoy her life as the Lady of Caed Nua, the fort she and her friends bled for, fighting wraiths, armies, wizards of old and dragons. Even if her friends have left to continue their own journey, Laura is not alone, having the chance to be a mother for Vela, the orlan she rescued from Twin Elms.This collection contains moments of the 5 years in-between the first and second game, as well as moments from  the Deadfire, particularly looking at her relationship with her old friends, Tekehu and her romance with Aloth.Spoiler warning for the new Pillars of Eternity II game!





	1. The Lady of Caed Nua

**Author's Note:**

> Days of peace before the sun rose.

Damian nervously fumbled with his medallion in his hand, feeling the eyes of his companion heavy on his back. He continued walking the dusty road to Caed Nua, unsure of himself and his path. Back at the tavern, he didn't expect the stranger to keep his word, yet now he appreciated the company - bandits still roamed the lands, even after the Crucible Knights regained control over Defiance Bay, bringing peace with them. And if it wasn't bandits, it was unsettled spirits or beasts of the forest - many creatures could stand between him and his goal.

His company - thankfully - broke away his trail of thought. "You were far more talkative last night. I doubt it's the hangover, now, is it?" he says with a mischievious smirk, his amber eyes glistening under the midday sun. Damian retreated further under his hood, guilt gnawing at his soul. He stared at his medallion with softness, turning his head and slowing down to reach his companion, hoping for a distraction.

"No... You haven't told me much about her. How can you be so certain she's Lady Webb's pupil?" The man laughs, waving him off. "Never said pupil, friend. But she is the closest thing to Lady Webb, and Caed Nua is the new Hadret House. Whatever ciphers were left after the revolts flocked around her. She's...heh, a beacon, of sort," he says with ease, as if the phrase should mean anything to Damian.

Some farm folk knew of Hadret House and its mysterious ciphers, ones that aren't Glanfathans, and can find anyone and anything in the Dyrwood. Now that children all across Dyrwood were recovering, their souls returning, Damian needed their help to find him, he needed to know. Yet when he arrived to Defiance Bay, all he found was ruins. A burnt down house in a neighbourhood of villas and rich people's homes. Defeated, Damian dragged himself to the nearest tavern, bought their cheapest drink and tried to sleep it off, but was instead baited by this...stranger. Ocean folk, a traveller, judging by his garments. He spoke of a Lady so great that resided in Caed Nua, a place Damian knew to be abandoned and haunted. Yet, some of his friends kept telling stories of its revival, of the sudden surge of jobs that kept appearing in that area. Then, he heard about the battle of Yenwood, where people fought to the death for Caed Nua's rulership. Yet, until now, Damian paid little attention to local tales, what noble rules what area. Nobles cared not for farmer's plight, so why should he be troubled for theirs?

"What can you tell me about her? I've heard there's someone at Caed Nua, yet I know... nothing about her," he admits, watching a flock of birds fly overhead. Hylea's presence was strong in the Dyrwood.

 

"Well, where should I begin? She's a fair lady, met her myself, did some business a long time ago, and now I trade with her rare items - she pays well, and has interesting things to offer in exchange!", the stranger tells him, his Vailian accent stronger once his speaking pace increased. "Hails from Old Vailia, has been in the Dyrwood for a year now, I believe... Quite the adventures she's been through! If you're lucky, you'll stay over the night in the Keep and hear her tales, she has a melody to her voice" he says, boosting her qualities as if he's promoting a politician. 

 

"But her abilities? Can she find anyone? Anything?" 

"Ah," the stranger breathes in, "she can do more than that. She's not just a cipher. She is a watcher." 

 

Watchers. Damian heard the word before, but whoever explained it to him sounded like someone explaining ciphers to him. Beings who could see and manipulate souls. Animancers? A shudder ran down his spine.

"And before you ask, they are separate things. But one helps the other, which is why she's the best of the best." Suddenly, the man stops dead in his tracks. "How forgetful I am! Have I even shared my own name? It is Azzuro, I have noticed you'd been avoiding to address me!", he laughs, amused by his mistake. Although, Damian was sure it wasn't a mistake, but he must have forgotten the name the night before. All these Vailian names sound the same, with zz in them no matter who it is. So then...?

 

"Ah, yes, Azzuro. My appologies, I suppose I was a little... taken, last night. And her name?" he asks, pointing to the keep, now within viewing distance.

 

"Laura Peverara Mes Rèi, my friend."

 

* * *

 

 

Damian and Azurro were greeted by a pair of Crucible Knights, yet the others in the Keep's courtyard didn't seem to be connected to the faction. Damian spotted clerics, marksmen, hunters and thugs, even an Ogre three times as big as he, right next to the Keep's enourmous doors. They slid inside the dimly lit room, and stopped upon reaching the courtroom.

 

Before him stood, in a grand throne, a lady so blue she seemed made out of water. Her eyes were two shining, white beacons, so intense that they seemed to be peering in his very soul. Markings as white as her eyes adorned her body, reflecting through the purple gown she was wearing. A crown adorned her forehead - no, _horns_. Horns that looked made of crystal light, fragment of the moon itself, encrusted on her forehead, like a wreath of light. She is speaking to a guard softly, yet her gaze lingers on him. And his medallion, tightly held in his left hand.

 

He looks towards Azzuro, feeling heat raise in his face and his heart jumping out of his chest. "You didn't mention she's Ondra's blessed", he whispers as quietly as he can, embarassed under the scrutiny of her gaze. Suddenly, this is a horrible idea. "A godlike!"

"Hush now," says the Vailian, "she won't eat your soul and drown you, amico. She's a benevolent soul. An old soul. I'll leave you to it!", seeing something else of interest, Azzuro bows once towards the Lady of Caed Nua and leaves to the right room, his bag of goods hanging heavy on his shoulder. 

 

Suddenly, the Lady stands up and steps towards Damian, who can feel his feet shacking. She is gorgeous, more beautiful than the reflection of the moon upon water. And as terrifying as the sea's wrath. 

As if reading his mind (maybe she is?), she chuckles softly, holding out her hand, as if waiting for the medallion, or his hand. 

"Be at peace. You are in a safe place, no matter what you might of heard of me, I am here to help." Like Azzuro, she has a strong Vailian accent, yet a bit different than his. "You are here for someone." Inspecting his face, as if searching, she nods. "What happened to him?"

His throat is filled with sand. Or needles. Or both. He tries to speak, his voice coming off ruff and rugged. "H-he was... empty, from the start. We t-tried to...to help him, keep him still, hoping someone could...will fix him. R-return his soul." He takes his hat in his hand, somewhat bowing to the elven godlike before him. "Um, but just before the others in our farm recovered we... we lost him."

Confused, she stares bewildered. "Lost him? How could that be? Souless children had no will, certainly not to leave their families."

"No, we...left him." Tears were running down his sun burnt cheecks, trying to control his sobs at the confession. He suddenly felt alone. "W-we left him near an animancer's cottage, h-hoping he could... keep him, or-or watch him, fix him...

But we don't know where the animancer is. The house is abandoned, all their things dissapeared. And no sign of our son, he-he might still be alive. He might have returned to himself, to his body."

The godlike stared with great intensity, and Damian couldn't tell if she wanted to smite him or comfort him. He tried to stop his sobbing - he wasn't here for sympathy, but for help. He did an unthinkable thing, but they were desperate. His wife nearly lost her own mind, they were starving with only one of them taking care of the fields and animals. They couldn't take care of the child anymore. They...

"Is that his?" she asks with gentleness. 

"N-no, it belonged to the animancer. We came to an agreement, our boy for..."

"Reward," she stated coldly, as if the winter of Rymrgand himself seeped inside his bones. "Something to pay off taxes with, I take it?"

"Y-yes, milady."

Damian stared at the damned medallion with hate. He wanted to take it all back, have a bit more hope, enough to last a couple more months so he could witness the miracle himself, like many other farmers have. 

 

She grabbed his hands and light, white and purple, came from the center of her horns, her eyes shining brightly, and her hands gripping his tighter. After a moment, she sighs, and nods.

 

"I can find them."


	2. A New Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler warning for POE II Deadfire!  
> \- the very beginning of the game + headcanons of things that happened just before -

Since destroying Thaos' soul, Laura could finally rest. Sleep without shrieking and crying in her sleep, waking up the entire fortress with her screams. She had a good life, peaceful, manageable and predictable, with the few political plots and marauders roaming the roads here and there. But mostly, she hardly had any dreams - any vivid dreams, that is.

 

Up until tonight.

 

Her mind finds itself in front of the tree in Gilded Vale. It is as grim and horrible as the first day she stepped into the village, countless bodies hanging from the branches of the hideous tree. Crows are circling it, cawing away in the empty vastness. Yes, vastness... There is nothing around but emptiness, nothing but the tree. As she looks back at it, she's startled by an eye, staring with curiosity and intensity at her, disappearing as quickly as it came. It is raining, and water seems to grow around her ankles, raising drop by drop. And a wolf's howl startles her to look around again.

 

In the distance, pyres. Like the purging fires Edér and Durance told her about. Something's not right and there's a pit in her stomach.

So when the first lights of day peer through the fog, she looks east and sees Caed Nua, standing proud in the distance. The sky above it opens up to a beautiful blue and the sun begins to raise. From _within_ Caed Nua. But the more it rises, the more it feels angry, violent, red...

 

Screams come from it, screams for mercy and forgiveness, and red, _oh so much red and purple and..._

 

 

 

She awakes with a cough, as if she'd been holding her breath in her sleep. She tumbles out of her bed, falling to the floor, gasping for air. The dream doesn't vanish, she remembers it well. She remembers the pit in her stomach and raises to her feet, stumbling out and towards Vela's room.

 

Empty. Good, means the girl's left for Defiance Bay, there for lessons in history, writing, mathematics...

It doesn't take long for Laura to clamor to her workshop and find the right colors, shuffle through the right paints to begin painting the image she saw. It might make more sense if she... if she sees it again, clearly, with her eyes, and not her mind.

She spends all morning in there, brushing softly on the canvas, wondering what that warning was all about. Or if it was a warning at all. From the Gods? From herself? Maybe it was her instinct telling her that something... something is amiss, and she can't figure out what.

 

She ignores the knocks on her door, too focused on the work, on keeping the image alive in her mind, that she startles when a hand reaches for her shoulder.

 

'M'lady, you alright?'

Lys, the Goldpact knight she hired back in Gilded Vale, looks to her with a frown creasing her elven features. She's half amused, not showing it on her features, but Laura can tell. She can tell when people think her crazy.

'I'm fine, aimica, just... had an unpleasant dream,' the Watcher mutters, returning her gaze to her canvas. It is already nearly complete, all it needs now is a touch of red of dawn.

 

'Mmm', says the paladin, skeptical. 'You haven't had a nightmare to force you to paint for five years, ma'am. What is that, even?' she asks, leaving a plate of now cold breakfast on the stool next to the Godlike.

'Is that Caed Nua?', Lys snickers, 'You may have added a bit of embellishment lady, I don't remember it being this pretty.'

 

Laura never leaves the sun's rising image. Something about it is disturbing, yet she throws an eye at the details Lys is joking about. Embellishments?

'Sooo, you had a nightmare about a prettier fort, eh? Well, I've heard worse, lady.'

So dismissive Lys is of Laura's troubled state, that she leaves without a goodbye. She vanishes in the hallway and leaves the Watcher with her work.

 

 

It's not long after that when the statue comes to life. Gripping in its hand the Temple of Berath, smashing through the exterior walls and stealing the souls of all those who work at Caed Nua. Their screams are what awaken Laura from her work, now... different. She must have lost track of time, like in a meditation trace (she recalls Zahua's explanations on that) because now in her painting there's a colossus made of adra, and the sun is in his eyes.

 

She reaches for Whispers of Yenwood and runs outside. Her nightmare runs amok through her keep, uncaring of the resistance her small army puts. Their souls are ripped from their bodies, and soon Laura herself, only just outside, with her beloved sword in her hand, merely second after gazing the beast, feels herself...

 

Ripped. Torn. Pulled and contorted. Floating away, her body in pain, the screams and the blood and _the sun..._

 

Then, nothing.

 

* * *

 

When she feels her limbs again, everything comes back rushing in. Her memories, Iovara and Thaos' voices, Berath's deep gaze and her purpose, her fate, her duty, her... her duty?

Again, she shrieks awake, as if just waking up from the last sleep she had. from her dream with the sun rising in Caed Nua. For a moment, it feels like it _all_ could have been just a bad dream, but seeing Edér beside her bed coughing in shock tells her it wasn't. Her body feels numb, and the patches of her body covered in bandages, alongside the worst headache she's ever had, confirm that.

Edér seems more than surprised to see her awake, and she can't help but notice the change decor, and the _moving room?!_

_'Please please don't tell me we're on a boat. Anything but a boat.'  
_

 

She'll soon learn that not only is she on a ship, but she's now its captain _and_ in the Deadfire Archipelago. 

As if things couldn't get worse.


End file.
